Feel Smart Again

I hope everyone had a great 4th. It was absolutely gorgeous here in Orange County. I was standing in the supermarket the other day looking over the magazines while my wife, Mary, was picking up a few groceries and I noticed a magazine called “Mental Floss” with the tagline ::feel smart again::, so I picked it up as inconspicuously as I could trying not to call attention to my desire to “feel smart again” and found an interesting and telling fact buried among some interesting, but less useful tidbits like Grant’s compassion for Lee at Appomattox, Harry Houdini’s escape tactics, and what’s actually inside a tornado. The one that struck me was called “The first Time The Internet was Used for Good”. It was 1999 when a programmer names John Breen figured out a way to use banner ads to feed the hungry via his website, the Hunger Site. The point is that this was only eleven years ago when most of us were still trying to figure out the best insurance referral strategy, or insurance telemarketing script, or how to use the yellow pages to advertise your insurance agency, or spending six figures on CRM customization. The only thing that has changed since then is everything! This morning I picked up the Orange County Register and the lead story in the business section was “Getting friendly with social media”. A bunch of young guys who met on Facebook, are renting a 7,000 square foot home in San Clemente where they now live and run their new business called Social Spin, a social networking marketing business. Seven guys from all over the country meet via a social networking site and decide to start a business, live and work together in Southern California and are taping a reality show about the process. This to me, is the epitome of the paradigm shift. So, if you want to feel smart again take a hard a look at your internet marketing strategy. It could reinvigorate your drive for business. At least that’s what it’s doing for me.